3rd April 2010 – An open source software networking event was held at the University of Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA) by the Brunei Open Source Software Community (BOSSC?). Among the contents of the event were:

Introduction to Open Source and its future developments presented by Pg Izam Ryan Pg Bahrin – he talked about the origins of open source, where it is headed in the context of Brunei.

A showcase from participants of Think Big Competition in which ITB students used open source software to develop software for a fingerprinting system used as an attendance record.

A presentation from the Ministry of Education (MOE) Curriculum Development Department in which free software is used to teach students in form 1 and 2 (year 7 and 8) skills such as 3D modeling using google sketch, computer graphics drawing using Artweaver and Google Apps in education.

The events ended with a networking refreshment session. (I unfortunately had to personally go right before this as I was in a hurry to pick up my wife.)

Open source software I believe is the gateway in which Brunei can be a knowledge base economy. The use of propriety software as long as its pirated ones have been pushed to the masses for long enough, some of us have begun to realize that we do not have to settle for what is available, instead we can create something according to our own needs.

In the future, I expect the Open source movement in Brunei to flourish as soon as Copyright and Piracy laws are enforced in both the Public and Private sectors. Where the use of legal propriety software such as Windows and MS Office will be viewed as costly and many will revert to open source software such as Linux and OpenOffice.org. When this happens, then a whole new opportunity for software development, maintenance and training will begin.

When I don’t know for sure, the copyright issues in Brunei have begun to resolve slowly, there has been rumors that the copyright enforcement in Brunei may begin more seriously in 2013.